Intro
A couple of years ago my friend Sammi baked some scrumptious cookies. After asking for the recipe, I learned he was following a rough one from memory, leaning on his acquired baking skill for perfection.
It turns out this was a skill I did not have! My first attempt at following this rough recipe left me rather disappointed – they were nothing like Sammi’s! It was time to hone my own cookie-baking skill…
Rapid prototyping… a cookie
I found the final result was mostly sensitive to:
- The baking time
- The quantity of flour
The science
Baking time
This was the trickiest variable to dial in. I found I had to remove the cookies from the oven at exactly the right moment, as they were too easy to under or overbake.
Removing them too early resulted in them still being too soft and sticky once they cooled and set. On the other hand, leaving them in too long resulted in them becoming too firm and crunchy instead. There was a relatively narrow goldilocks zone where they set and became blissfully soft and chewy!
- Thermal inertia. Because the cookies retain a little heat, they continue to bake for a short duration of time after leaving the oven.
- Setting. The liquified sugars firm up as they cool, affecting consistency too.
- Sensitivity to time in the oven. The cookies bake quickly because they are very thin. This means the window between underbaking and overbaking is small. A couple of minutes here or there makes a huge difference!
All this is to say you need to remove the cookies from the oven at precisely the right time. And at this moment, trying to judge how they will end up once they’ve cooled and set, is tricky!
I remove them when they still look slightly underbaked, with browning at the edges only.
Chocolate chips
- Use any type of chocolate you fancy. I personally love triple chocolate chip cookies, so I like to use equal amounts of white, milk and dark chocolate. The choice is yours.
- Use sweet eating chocolate rather than bitter cooking chocolate, as you want to be biting into chunks of sweet chocolatey goodness.
- Larger chocolate chips = chunkier texture. I prefer chopping the chocolate bar pieces into half for a relatively chunky texture.
- Feel free to adjust the quantity of chocolate to your liking. However, be careful if you add more. From experience, you risk them becoming fragile due to there not being enough dough to bind the chocolate chips together!
Salt
And finally, at the end, I like to sprinkle the cookies with a pinch of rock salt as I’m a big fan of that sweet and salty combo.
Recipe
- Prep time ~20 mins
- Bake time ~15 mins
Ingredients (makes ~12 cookies)
| Item | Quantity |
|---|---|
| Granulated sugar | 100g |
| Brown sugar | 100g |
| Demerara sugar | 50g |
| Salted butter (melted) | 125g |
| Maple syrup | 30ml |
| Egg | 1 |
| Vanilla extract | 1 tsp |
| Self-raising flour | 210g |
| Eating chocolate (chopped) | 250g |
| Rock salt | – |
Method
- Mix the sugar and melted butter together
- Mix in the maple syrup, eggs and vanilla extract
- Stir in the flour and chocolate pieces until the mixture forms a wet dough
- Chill for at least a couple of hours until the dough firms up
- Heat the oven to 175°C fan
- Line a baking tray with baking paper
- Scoop golf ball-sized balls of dough onto the tray, flattening them slightly with the palm of your hand and making sure to leave enough space around them to melt and spread out.
- Bake for ~14mins*
- Transfer to a wire rack for cooling
- Sprinkle rock salt to taste
*If you have problems with underbaking or overbaking them, I recommend running a quick trial to dial in the baking time, making sure to let them cool all the way to room temperature before taste testing. It’s worth the effort!
Acknowledgements
Thank you Sammi for showing me how great a cookie can be! As well as being an expert cookie baker, Sammi has a passion for skating, both on wheels and on ice. Check out his website.